A typical acoustic transducer consists of an array of individual piezoelectric elements, each of which must be electrically connected separately to an electrically conductive connector for transmission and reception of electrical signals. To make the electrical connection in the prior art, one might bond individual connectors to the electrodes of the array elements. Thus, if the transducer consists of a large array of elements, this technique of providing electrical connections can prove time consuming and tedious.
Still another prior art technique of providing electrical connections to the array of elements individually is to solder fingers of conductive material onto a rigid circuit board initially. Then, the conductive fingers are individually connected to the electrodes of the elements with conducting epoxy. This technique likewise proves to be time consuming and tedious. Furthermore, because of the close proximity of the transducer elements, the conductive epoxy has to be applied extremely carefully. Otherwise, adjacent elements can easily be short-circuited to each other.
To overcome these disadvantages in the prior art techniques, the technique in accordance with the present invention bypasses the need for making individual connections to the array of transducer elements by bonding onto a block of piezoelectric material a flexible circuit board containing conductive traces of etched, individual connectors. The piezoelectric block may contain individual elements, in which case the individual connectors would be aligned with the individual elements before bonding. Once bonded, the connectors and elements form individual transducer elements. Alternatively, the piezoelectric block may be solid, in which case the flexible circuit board would be bonded to the block and both circuit board and block would be sawn to form individual transducer elements.